Alvarez has a wonderful conversational style and sense of humor that makes reading these essays like having a chat with her face-to-face. Each of the essays stands alone and tells something about her -- about her aculturation to the U.S when she arrived from the D.R. as a young girl, about her integrating her D.R. roots with the U.S. culture in which she came of age into the woman she is, about her biligualism and each language represents something different to her. Her lyrical accounts of language and culture are much more personal and interesting than Hoffman's accounts in Lost in Translation. I read half of Something to Declare in one evening and have already recommended it to one of my students -- who has the book now, so I have to wait to finish reading it!